The Firesign Theatre is a conversation -- a state of mind -- a way of looking at the world that makes no assumptions, holds no preconceptions, stakes no claim, and posts no bills. It's what happens when four individuals from disparate backgrounds throw their collective psyches together and conjure up a fifth - hence the name of their publishing company, "Four Or Five Krazy Guys."

These four individuals found themselves thrust together at a time in American history when an overwhelming feeling of "where do we go from here?" was the zeitgeist. The times they were a-changing, my friend, and they were being swept along with it. Led by Peter "The Wizard" Bergman and joined by Phil Proctor, David Ossman and Phil Austin, they presided over a small corner of the cultural revolution in front of the "Radio Free Oz" microphones. They were at the forefront of FM underground radio in Los Angeles in the mid 1960's.

A writing partnership grew out of their radio-centric improvisationally-conjured alternate realities, which then led to a string of 22 "comedy" albums. I use the term "comedy" advisedly because in their best work the humor grew naturally out of the concepts and ideas behind the work, aided and abetted by their firm command of the vocabulary of audio drama and helped along by the the burgeoning technology of the recording studio. They were at the right place at the right time, and they took advantage of it as best they could.

Unfortunately, a combination of societal changes and internal conflict took the wind out of their sales (as it were) and by the early eighties it seemed that the best days of the group had come and gone. Part of the problem though, as I see it, had to do with timing. In much of their best work, they caught the drift of and articulated the direction in which society seemed to be heading. They were so far ahead of their time that much of what they had to say went over most people's heads. This was no small source of frustration for the group, which through much of the late 1970's and all of the '80's were torn between continuing to push the envelope of their imaginations vs. consciously adapting their material to appeal to a wider audience.

Fortunately for fans of the group, the Firesign juggernaut picked up some steam in the '90s. Phil Proctor's marriage to Melinda Petersen (with David Ossman as the pastor) was the spark that brought the guys back together, healing many old wounds and resulting in a 25th anniversary reunion tour in 1993. This led to a one-off radio gig with the four original members writing new material together for the first time: a series of fake ads that were broadcast on April Fool's Day 1997.

The renewed their ties with Rhino Records (their label for three album releases in the 1980s) and released three all-new albums over a span of four years:

• Give Me Immortality Or Give Me Death, a millennial mediation on the state of the world as seen through the eyes of the staff at a major market radio station;
  
  
• Boom Dot Bust, a cautionary tale of small-town and big-time capitalism and politics run amok in the age of the internet;
  
  
• The Bride Of Firesign, a kaleidoscopic journey through the current lives of the most well-known characters that populate Firesign World.

The group toured the U.S. west coast, performing in front of a live theater audience in 1999, and again in 2005.

They had a brief run of live radio shows, Fools In Space, on XM Satellite Radio. This series marked the first time since their syndicated "Let's Eat" radio series (1971 & '72) that the group engaged in the kind of quasi-improvisational live radio shows that was their hallmark in the southern California of the 1960's and '70s. The "Fools In Space" shows may see the light of day in the form of a CD release in the not too distant future.

They recorded a live show in front of a studio audience, Weirdly Cool, in 2002. The show was a combination of re-worked classic bits with new material, interspersed with interviews of celebrities commenting on the group and how influential their work has been over the years.

As they did in the early '80s, the group had a regular gig on NPR's All Things Considered for a few months in the early 2k's. This work has been collected in the CD All Things Firesign.

And on April 6, 2006, the Firesign Theatre's classic album "Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers" was added to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress. Three of the group members - Proctor, Bergman and Ossman - were on hand to perform at the ceremony in Washington. D.C.

One of the main complaints of many a Firesign fan has been the difficulty of acquiring CD copies of their best-known work. Well seekers, seek no more: virtually the entire Firesign back catalog, as well as both archival and more recent work, is now available through Lodestone Catalog: http://lodestonecatalog.com. There is also a must-have collection of Firesign t-shirts, bumper stickers and license plate frames available there as well. Go forth and spend your hard-earned cash!!

I was listening to some early Firesign radio work with an old friend of mine, a fellow firehead familiar with their best-known work but who had lost touch with the group back in the late '70s. As we listened, he made this observation: "Y'know, I think the world has just about caught up with these guys." I think he hit the bull's eye on the head with that observation.

A fairly comprehensive overview of and introduction to the group (covering the beginning of their careers to 1993) can be found in the liner notes to the Shoes For Industry "best-of" double-cd compilation. For more recent information about the group, visit the Firezine web site (the 'zine is defunct but the site lives on). But the real action is to be found on their own site, www.firesigntheatre.com, which has sprung to life with a vengeance in the wake of their flurry of new work over the past eight years.